


Welcome to Night Vale High

by icyowl97



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:50:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1435723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyowl97/pseuds/icyowl97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil Palmer is a freshman at Night Vale High. Facing bullies, boy scouts, and being an aid at the library, Cecil is convinced that he won't live to see his sophomore year.<br/>This isn't an AU or anything, so Carlos and Dana and so forth won't be featured in this story. This is exclusively what I think happened when Cecil was in high school. It's also my first fanfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Impressions and First Friends

Cecil decided he hated high school. He'd only been in the school for five minutes, but that conclusion was an easy one to reach, seeing as he'd already been shoved in his own locker. Cecil never was one to rush to conclusions, and he usually waited to see how things would pan out, but he had already thought that he would hate high school beforehand, so being shoved into a locker only gave him a good, solid reason to hate it.

That isn't to say he thought it was bad. He knew it could have been worse. He could have been fed to the trash can, like his brother's friend, Rodrick. Or he could have been shoved in a toilet, or thrown into the anti-gravity bubble around the flag pole. In fact, he was sort of lucky, if he stopped to think of other possibilities. His last locker in middle school had had a carnivorous flyer in it because the person who had had the locker the year before hadn't bothered to take it home, or at least dip it in acid which was the proper way to dispose of writing. Over the summer, it had eaten other papers and flyers, even a book, and had grown to a gigantic size. They couldn't remove it from the locker, so Cecil had to carry all his books with him, least they be eaten. He actually still had a scar on his face from the first day of school when he opened it.

That locker would have been awful to be shoved in. He probably would have eaten. This locker, on the other hand, wasn't that bad. Small, cramped, and coating him with digestive juices, yeah, but no monster. As long as he got out in a day, he'd be okay. Lockers took a long time to eat their food, since they didn't have teeth.

While he was pondering this, he heard the locker next to his open. He opened his mouth to ask if whoever it was could, perhaps, let him out, but when the kid yelped he realized that it was just another kid getting shoved into a locker, just like him. Cecil, ever the optimist, was a bit happy to at least have someone to talk to, if he couldn't get out.

"Hello?" Cecil asked, curious. "Hi, my name is Cecil. Cecil Palmer. Who are you?"

There were a few minutes of silence before he heard a soft: "Earl. My name is Earl." He heard the metal creak, followed by the bang of bone on metal as the other boy tried to shift into a more comfortable position, and Earl let loose a few choice words.

Cecil smiled. He couldn't even try to shift his position, seeing as how he was upside down. "Hi, Earl. What are you doing in your locker?" He asked, curious as to why the other kid was being picked on.

He, of course, knew why he was in his locker. It happened during puberty. Everyone started growing up, and Cecil had gotten the short end of the stick. He stayed at an average height, wasn't fat nor thin. And that was fine. But he didn't get a third eye. Everyone else in his class got one, and Johnny got 4 extra eyes!

He did everything he could. He played in Raydon Canyon constantly, he bought radium rich vitamins, but nothing worked. He just couldn't get a third eye. Even his mother was embarrassed, and he couldn't blame her. His brother, Simon, had 5 eyes after all. She was always saying: "They are coming through the dark, the light blinks on the mountain." He felt awful. He'd been such a disappointment that she'd started talking crazy. Everyone knew mountains weren't real, and existed only in the Shadowlands.

Earl muttered something under his breath that even Cecil couldn't hear. "Come again, Earl?" He asked.

"Ionlyhavetwoandahalfeyes." Earl mumbled, sound slightly ashamed.

Cecil giggled. "You still have half an eye more than I do." He said, then frowned as a particularly large drop of acid sizzled through his shirt.

Earl gasped, and Cecil felt a pang in his heart. "Oooohhhhh! You're the... the..."

Cecil sighed, refusing to let tears well up in his eyes as he lost his only chance to have a friend.

"You're the Palmer kid!" Earl finished. "You're going to be in my troop this year, right?"

"Uhh... Yeah." Cecil was slightly taken aback by the other boy's reaction.

"I'm Earl Harlan!" Earl exclaimed. There was another bang as his head hit the back of his locker, but he was so excited he just kept talking. "I didn't recognize you 'cause, you know, I've never actually talked to you before.... But I guess we're going to be in the same troop!"

"Neat!" Cecil practically beamed. "I mean, that you're a boy scout too. Not that you hit your head." He paused for a moment. "Is this your first year?"

"Nah." Earl said. "I've been in since I was old enough to join. The tablets say I'm going to be the scout leader when I grow up. Well... Me or Kendrick. One of us is gonna die. But I think I've got it. I've already gotten my "forced immunity to all known venom and poisons" and that's the one that kills most people. I bet Kendrick bites the dust this year."

"That's really neat, Earl. I hope you survive." Cecil paused for a moment. "Hey, Earl? You wanna be friends?"

"Sure!" Earl exclaimed, and Cecil was pretty sure he heard a smile in Earl's voice. 

Cecil wondered, for a moment, what Earl looked like. Before he could put any serious thought into it though, Cecil found himself blinking in the bright, green light of the hallway as his locker door was thrown open. He felt something wrap around his ankle and pull him out, and he hit his head on the door as he came out, then once more as he was dumped on the ground head first. He sure was glad he was one of the Nigh Valein citizens who couldn't feel pain.

He looked and saw Mrs. White standing over him, opening doors and pulling kids out of the lockers with her long tentacles, and he heard a few of those kids who could feel pain yelping on the other side of the hallway.

Cecil gulped. Great. First day in school, and Cecil was already meeting the principal. 

"Cecil Palmer? Earl Harlan?" She hissed through her second mouth as she dangled him upside by his ankle.

"Yes ma'am?" Cecil asked, calming himself by counting the drops of acid that hit the floor and burned little holes in the black linoleum, too nervous to look away from her to look at Earl.

"Why are you in your locker? Shouldn't you two be in class?" Mrs. White said, dropping him on his head again.

He sat up, instantly, rubbing his head. "Sorry, ma'am." He said.

"Get to class. Or I'll give you detention." She said, before gliding off, a few of her tentacles holding her off the ground as she went off to talk to the other student.

Cecil, who was still rubbing his head for some reason, suddenly remembered his new friend, Earl, who he still had no idea what he looked like.

He looked over to his side and saw Earl was already standing and was holding out his pale, freckled hand to help Cecil up.

Cecil took it, looking his new friend over. Earl was tall and thin, with spiky red hair that was currently smoking a bit. Probably from the locker. But it didn't seem to be on firm, so Cecil didn't mention it. Earl flashed a smile at Cecil, and Cecil noted his braces.

"Earl?" Cecil asked slowly, glancing briefly at the thin outline of a third eye on the other boy's forehead.

"Yeah. Cecil?" Earl was staring at his forehead intently.

"What?" 

"You look just fine with only two eyes." Earl said.

Cecil flushed. "Th-thank you. You look good too." He stuttered, his ears turning pink. He tried to think of a way to shift the conversation to something safer. "So, uh, you have braces?"

"Yeah. My mom did them herself. She said she wasn't going to take the risk of losing another child to the orthodontist." 

"Ah." Cecil nodded. "I see. I was lucky enough to have straight teeth." He smiled, reveling mostly straight teeth, with a few crooked ones.

Earl ignored the fact that he did have crooked teeth. "Yeah. But my mom stared at the void for too long, so I have to see the orthodontist to get them off, unless I can find someone else to do it."

"I could try." Cecil offered, and Earl laughed. 

"Maybe if you get your Field Dentistry badge." Earl said, smiling. "I hope so. I really don't want to go see the orthodontist. I saw what was left of my brother's body." Earl shuddered and Cecil tried to wrap his arm around his friend, standing on his tiptoes. He ultimately gave up and just patted Earl on the shoulder.

"It'll be fine, Earl. I'm sure that in the worst case scenario we'll have learned self defense, evasion, and escape tactics. I hear that they're the first badges we'll learn."

"I did learn all the weak points on medical professionals. But that was more for nurses and-" Before Earl could finish, the first bell rang, and the blood flooded out of his already pale face. "Oh man, I gotta get to class. Run for it, Cecil!" He said, running down the hallway.

Cecil took off too. He tried to keep his mind off of the punishment for being late to class, and rather on his mental map of the school. If he wasn't in class when the second bell rang, the rent-a-cop might get him, and that was a fate Cecil wouldn't wish on even Steve Carlsberg. He shuddered as he broke into a sprint, his sneakers squelching loudly on the school floor.


	2. Getting the Lay of the Lunch Room

Cecil ducked into his classroom just as the second bell rang and silently slipped into the nearest seat, breathing heavily. He had made it. And the fact that he had made it in one piece made it even more impressive. 

He pulled his textbook for the class (Nuclear Physics) out of his bag and almost had a heart attack when he noticed that the belt he had used to hold it shut it had almost slipped off.

He pushed it back up and tightened it. You couldn't take a chance with books. Last year book related incidences cause almost half of the unexplained disappearances, and a few deaths. Books were very dangerous

When the teacher, Mr. Sternworth walked in through the blackboard and scrawled out several symbols on the board in a green gel, the class put their heads on their textbooks, learning, as usual, through osmosis. Cecil followed the suit as he figured that that was what the teacher said.

Cecil wasn't sure what it said, as he took Unmodified Sumerian and not Pig Latin Sandscript, but he was pretty sure it said something along the lines of "Read chapters 3-7." It was either that or "Sacrifice your firstborn child to the sand waste to bring rain."

He was pretty sure it was the first, because they were in high school. Of course they didn't have any children.

When the bell rang, Cecil was almost as reluctant to remove his head from the book as the book was to let him remove it, which made the usual process of trying to remove the tiny barbs even harder than usual.

Cecil decided that he liked Nuclear Physics, despite his usual aversion to science. "Who knows?" He said to himself as he headed back out to the hallway to find his next class. "Maybe this will be my scientist year." After all, everyone is a scientist at some point or another in their lives.

The next few classes weren't that interesting. He'd never really liked Math, or Chanting. He did enjoy his English class, though Mrs. Yewman's voice was so tiny he could barely hear her from the front row. Not that it was her fault, seeing as she was a tarantula, but still. She ought to at least set up a microphone system.

Finally it was lunchtime. Cecil rushed to his locker. His lunch was already in his bag, because he hadn't had time to put it back, but he wanted to see if he could find Earl. He didn't think he'd be able to find Earl in the cafeteria what with the sudden influx of the no-longer-shadowy shadow people. 

He waited there for thirteen minutes and was just about to give up on it when Earl showed up, his hair still red, but no longer smoking.

"Earl!" Cecil said, relieved. "Hey. I was... umm.... Lunch, you know? Safer in groups?"

Earl smiled, and the light reflected off his braces. "Yeah, Cecil. I was actually thinking the same thing! Actually, just last year a shadow person tried to take my arm off, and I only survived because of my scout training. So when I didn't see you in the lunch room, I got worried. Then I figured you might have gotten shoved in your locker again, so I came to check on you."

Cecil flushed. Earl had been concerned about him being attacked by the shadow people, or being shoved in his locker? And he actually noticed that Cecil hadn't been there? That meant he had looked for Cecil! He smiled shyly. "Thanks, Earl. So, should we go to the cafeteria now?" 

Earl nodded, his grin fading into a more serious expression. "Yeah. You got any weapons?"

Cecil nodded. He had a machete, which he was now wearing on his belt, a crossbow, and his sapphire dagger. Well, technically it was a bloodletting knife, but to survive high school you had to make everything into a weapon.

"Alright then! Let's get going." Earl said, walking towards the cafeteria. 

Cecil followed him, a wide grin on his face.


	3. In Case Your Life Wasn't Hard Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil gets a slight schedule change that brings his danger level up to indigo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I skipped two days here. If anyone wants, I could go fill them in and write more to fill this gap, but I was lazy. All that would have happened was typical Night Vale weirdness, and Earl and Cecil bonding time. The first day of Scouts hasn't happened yet either.

Schedule changes were normal. They happened. People made mistakes, and the mistakes that had been made needed to be corrected. There were often a few on the first couple of days. It was totally natural.

Cecil hadn't been that worried when his schedule burst into flames. He waited patiently by his locker (casting nervous glance over his shoulder at the clock to make sure he wouldn't be late) for it to regrow. 

The ashes slowly reconnected, and Cecil abandoned watching the clock to prick his finger with his bloodletting knife. He let a few drops fall onto the paper, and once the words began to swirl into place he quickly put a little smiley face band aide on the tiny cut. 

The words formed quickly, which meant that there hadn't been many changes, and it was good seeing as he now had only 2 minutes to get to his next class. 

When it finished, he picked it up, pausing only to check the period he was currently in. It hadn't changed, so he rushed off to class with his schedule crushed up in his palm.

After Cecil took his seat, he stopped to look at his schedule. It all looked mostly the same. Advanced Chanting. American Literature. Theater. He scanned through them, his eyes darting side to side. Room numbers, teachers, subjects, time, current denial level: Cecil skipped nothing. Anything could have changed.

But when his eyes finally settled upon the thing that had changed, he froze completely. Despite the icy chill that had set upon his body when he froze, Cecil felt thick beads of sweat roll down his skin as he read the line over and over and over again.

"12:30- Library- Library aide- Denial Level: 17- Danger Level: Indigo- Credits: That only matters if you survive. ;)"

Cecil almost vomited. Sure, gym had been dangerous, and just last week Johnny Silvestry had lost both his legs and one arm to a shark in the pool. But at least that made sense. You had to be strong, and fast to survive Night Vale. In fact, you probably needed 12 years of gym just to survive a day as a library aide.

He knew that it happened. He'd seen the remains of all the other library aides. But this wasn't something that happened to you or anyone you know. This was what happened to faceless kid who may have had a name but no one knew because they didn't have a mouth to tell you.

This didn't happen to people who mattered. This didn't happen to people with faces, or names, or who had their destiny scrawled out on the tablets. Cecil had a fate. He had a future.

Or at least, he had.

Cecil hadn't notice that all the kids had begun the class until Mrs. Yewman had crawled onto his desk and bit his hand, snapping him out of his freeze. "Ow." He said briefly, sucking on the wound. "What-" He looked around the room and noticed that everyone else was already binding with their books for the flow of information, and it he didn't even have his book out. "I'm sorry ma'am.

"Just get to work, Mr. Palmer." She clicked into his ear before biting his ear as well. 

He winced as her sharp mandibles tore through the ear, and rested his face onto the book, watching Mrs. Yewman scuttle off his desk.

Despite the book's best efforts, Cecil couldn't get into it. He didn't even have to try to resist. He was too busy mulling over that fact that after lunch he would be forced to go into the library. He'd have to work in the library. And Night Vale High had an actual librarian. 

He'd heard that this librarian, who went by "Mrs. Grace Lewis" was one of the meanest librarians ever. He didn't doubt it, because she'd worked in the library for 17 years and nobody had managed to kill her yet.

Before he could even get out of denial, time decided to speed up and the bell rang. The book, furious that the only emotions it had gotten from Cecil were nausea and gut-churning terror refused to come off.

Some of the other kids tried to help him get it off his face but it refused to budge, sinking it's teeth deep into the muscles in his face, some of the longer ones burrowing into the bone. Even the sheer humiliation he felt wasn't enough to satisfy it's appetite for emotion or information.

Eventually he just had to stumble to his locker, unable to see out of one eye, humiliated, still terrified, and upset because he was so late that Earl probably thought Cecil had skipped out and left him there.

But when he got to the locker, Earl was standing there, the look of anger- no, concern, the look of concern on his face quickly being replaced with happiness. Then confusion, and ultimately concern again.

"Cecil, your English textbook is still linked with you." He said, and Cecil grumbled.

"I know. We tried everything to get it off. We even used dynamite and a chainsaw. Nothing worked." He scowled the best he could while only being able to move one side of his face, before trying to do the same with a smile. He looked ridiculous. "Thanks for waiting."

"Ah... No problem. Hey, do you want a hand with that?" Earl said, gesturing to the book.

Cecil sighed. "It's wedged on there real tight. It won't come off. But feel free to try."

Earl nodded and opened up his bag, fumbling around before pulling out a small white bottle. He uncapped it and walked over to Cecil, and Cecil felt something cool run down his forehead as Earl dumped the contents of the bottle out.

The book shook before withdrawing it's teeth and flopping to the ground, and Earl quickly scrapped up the liquid and pour it back in the bottle. Then he began to examine the bites.

"Wow, Cecil, these are really deep." He said before returning to his back. He placed the small bottle back in the bag only to pull out another bottle, this one clear and filled with a purple gel that Cecil recognized as a wound cleaning solution. "You're going to have some scars." Earl added as he dipped a brush into the bottle before painting it gently over Cecil's face.

"What was that?" Cecil asked once Earl finished applying the gel.

"The stuff I used to remove the book?" Earl said over his shoulder as he rummaged through his bag for bandages.

Cecil nodded, and Earl waited until he had begun bandage the bite marks to answer.

"It's called white out. It's a very powerful potion that covers inks and words." He said. He added the last bit of tape before stepping away to survey his work. "I didn't actually know if it would work on a book though. I'm glad it did."

Cecil smiled again with only one side of his face. The other side was still numb even though the book was gone. "Thanks Earl. I'm sorry you had to waste it on me."

"Aww, it wasn't a waste." Earl waved a freckled hand, dismissing that. "I used it on a friend."

Cecil blushed (on only one side of his face?) and dropped his gaze to his feet to kick at the pens and pencils that were trying to stab his ankles. Which of course, reminded him of... "Umm, Earl? I got a schedule change and I'm now... a library aide." That was one way to change topics, he supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to do Earl's reaction to the whole aide thing in this chapter, but the book attack took longer than I expected.  
> I'll do Earl's reaction in the next chapter.  
> Also, when Cecil is looking at his schedule and sees "Cedits:" that would be for duel credit, because the Night Vale School System is seriously weird.

**Author's Note:**

> I firmly believe that all teachers in Night Vale are either from the outside world, or they are some form of monster. After all, what sort of normal Night Valean retains knowledge after school, and is willing to risk being near books? I also think schools are very dangerous places. Everything in a school will kill you.  
> Please leave comments and stuff. I'd really love any advice or pointers.


End file.
